are three different groups in the archipelago of the Lucayos. The first is
composed of the _Bahama_ islands, giving name to the channel where the
currents are most impetuous. The second is called _los Organos_; and the
third _los Martyres_, which are next the shore of _los Tortugas_ to the
westwards; which last being all sand, cannot be seen at any distance,
wherefore many ships have perished on them, and all along the coasts of
the Bahama channel and the Tortugas islands. Havanna in the island of Cuba
is to the southwards, and Florida to the northward, and between these are
all the before mentioned islands, of Organos, Bahamas, Martyres, and
Tortugas. Between Havanna and los Martyres, there is a channel with a
violent current, twenty leagues over at the narrowest; and it is fourteen
leagues from los Martyres to Florida. Between certain islands to the
eastwards, and the widest part of this passage to the westwards, is forty
leagues, with many shoals and deep channels; but there is no way in this
direction for ships or brigantines, only for canoes. The passage from the
Havanna, for Spain is along the Bahama channel, between the Havanna the
Martyres, the Lucayos, and Cape Canaveral; and the giving occasion to this
discovery was the great merit of Ponce de Leon, for which he was well
rewarded in Spain.

[1] The account of this voyage is often contradictory, and almost always
unintelligible. In this instance, De Leon is made, with a southern
course, to increase his latitude almost nine degrees to the north.--E.

[2] This account of the island of Bimini is perfectly ridiculous, as its
whole extent does not exceed twenty miles in length, and not exceeding
one mile broad; it is one of the smallest of the Bahama or Lucayo
islands, and the largest of them cannot possibly contain any stream of
water beyond the size of a brook.--E.

SECTION X.

_The Martyrdom of two Dominican Friars on the coast of Venezuela, through
the Avarice of the Spaniards_.

There happened about this time a very singular and melancholy event, which
I find recorded in many Spanish historians, which shews to what a height
corruption had grown in so short a time among the Spanish settlements in
the West Indies. Reports had reached Spain of the harsh and cruel manner
in which the natives were treated by the Spaniards, being distributed
among the proprietors of land as if they had been cattle. This moved some
religious men